Tag Archives: Bharat gas

Not in a mood for flowery words. Just want to document few more of my (bad) experiences in Bangalore.

1. My maid was on her way to Frazer Town for a checkup. She could not find an auto so she kept walking because of which she started feeling sick and threw up. She stopped another reluctant auto and requested to take her to clinic as she was feeling sick. But the auto wallah refused and went away.

2. My building security guard does everything but guard the building. They are just alcoholic showpieces. One of them would ask for money at the drop of a hat.

3. My maid stopped a man who was carrying a big stick. She wanted the stick as she had dropped something on the ground floor roof which needed to be picked up with the help of a stick. Once she got that thing the man started asking her for 50 bucks. She told that man that he should have asked for money at the time when she asked him to lend that stick she would have said no. Also, all the hard work of picking the thing from the roof was done by her so she should not be paying him any money. Lot of commotion happened, our security guard refused to intervene. Later another person asked her to go home and not entertain that greedy man.

4. Bharat Gas delivery man comes, most of the time without a bill. He would ask for 370/- and we would pay him. This time he came with a bill which had 322/- written on it which was inclusive of VAT. The man asked for 350/- I said the bill says 322/- he said its 326/- 20 Rupees is his deliver charges. I told him that makes a total of 340 not 350. He took the money and went away. In our absence he has been taking 370/- instead of 322/- Moreover gas deliver is free of charge. There are no deliver charges attached. But I still paid him as knowing that I am in a corrupt city, this delivery guy may decide not to deliver the gas on time. Once he took 20 days of pestering for delivering gas.

5. The guys at the cash counter of most of these so called departmental stores are dumb. They don’t understand simple queries. On asking for a plastic fridge bottle I was handed over a pearl pet jar.

6. Coconut shells which are supposed to be waste are sold for 10/- for a KG.

7. Tele marketing people call and ask, “Tell me madam” To which I have to yell at them. “You have called me, you tell me.”
8. Kaya skin clinic calls and asks for certain madam X. I tell them its not her number anymore, and I am asked, if the person has gone out of Bangalore. Now, what does Its not her number anymore mean anyway?
9. My baby sitter gets stalked. There is this guy who keeps calling me on my cell, just like that. There is no dirth of jobless men here.

10. People get run over by trains on the railway track near our house. Still the authorities won’t block that railway track or make a bridge over it.

Some good, smart person might ask me now, “Why am I still here?” Simon go back.
My answer to that is, “I am stuck here for a reason else I would have gone back long ago.”

I think I live in a jungle, no I am sure I live in a jungle village. I have run out of cooking gas and its been 25 days Bharat Gas has been efficiently inefficient in not delivering gas but delivering false promises; Gas delivery happening today at 11 a.m. which becomes 2 p.m. after 12 noon and then 6 p.m. by the time its 4 p.m. and after 6 p.m. it becomes delivery happening next day. Apparently Bharat Gas is known for their ever delaying delivery in Bangalore. However their website has all the big talks on customer satisfaction and customer being the king. The days of the monarchy being over; customer being the king backfires everywhere in Bangalore, be it plumber, who will tell you that he will come for sure, and he does come after 15 days of chasing when he realizes that the next day is a dry day and he would need more money to buy alcohol in black. Autowalahs are the shining example of customer service and performing their duties of taking us helpless commuters to our destination when it rains and IT city roads are water logged, when open drains become death traps; They simply look at you top to bottom and do a quick mental calculation which depends on how drenched you are and how far do you stay because that is exactly proportionate to the amount of fleecing that they can do.

Karnataka, I think, is the only state where you need a ration card to get a new connection for cooking gas. No election card, no passport (which you used to travel to USA when 9/11 happened), no nothing doing, only ration card. So what do you do if you were stupid enough to think that driver’s license, passport, voters card, pan card are all government authenticated valid documents and missed out on making a ration card? The answer is simple, you buy gas in black and the vendors will happily sell you cooking gas illegally because the state itself promotes dishonesty by tying up your hands since you don’t have a ration card. How does one get a ration card? Well I don’t know, I don’t even want to know because I anyway won’t be going to a ration shop, stand in a queue to buy my share of dust filled, husk filled, stone laden grains.

Why do I get a feeling that it is more useful if you are either a poor or a rich kid in this country, or may be a dalit because general category people from middle class families can’t arm twist the government nor do they get anything from the government’s kitty because the government won’t get anything from the educated middle class. They can’t brain wash us by giving us saree or free TV sets, nor can they earn heavy revenue from us because we won’t be starting a infrastructural project in their state. Yes all we do is pay our taxes on time which helps them get their salaries and buy new cars with great shock absorbers after all in Bangalore you need great shock absorbers and huge asses to take all the bumpy rides. I am sure I must have broken a few small bones already in 2 years becuase I don’t have a huge cushy ass, but repetitive torture of bumps, pot holes, open drains, no footpaths, lot of traffic has already numbed my senses to feel any more pain.

I have already given an ultimatum to my husband to get out of this village before I lose my mental balance and he finds me in some city mental hospital.

Here’s my wish list (which no one is interested in but still):- I want gas delivered on time and not wait for 20-25 days every month, I want good and intelligent customer service from my credit card company especially Citibank which goes berserk every month precisely 10 days before my due date fearing I might runaway to Afghanistan, I want good customer service from Airtel which can not provide a simple service like call conferencing, where agents don’t understand the difference between call details and call charges, I want quick resolution of petty problems like fixing water pipes which took an entire day of pestering, no 1000 bucks grocery bill where the grocery list contains potato, onion, mango, orange, bread and milk, I want better roads where I can walk without a life or accident insurance, I want footpaths and not drain covers in the guise of footpath, I want honest autowallas. Ah! Me and my huge expectations.

Note:- Hate comments though not welcome, will anyway get them on my blog because that’s what people do, join on-line fight clubs and not address real issues.